Promoting Thought

"SIR! How do you say...?" or "MISS! I don't get it!" Cries that can be the very last thing you want to hear after explaining something in detail or when you know you covered the necessary vocab last lesson. It's fine for children to not understand and it's great when students ask questions but should we be pandering to pupil's needs immediately? Probably not but, the majority of the time, we just want to give ourselves an easier life. However, pupils gain nothing from us answering their questions for them so how can we get them to think for themselves first?

3B4ME, BBBB(Brain Buddy, Book, Boss), SNOT (Self,Neighbour, Other, Teacher) are all variations of the same thing. I've implemented these in the past in an attempt to get pupils, especially year 7, to take a bit more responsibility for their work and not to just rely solely on me. However, I'm also trying to expose the students to as much Target Language as possible and these posters have helped me to do just that.

Based on the BBBB method, posters are placed around my room to encourage pupils to follow Cerveau, Cahier, Camarade and Cerebro, Cuaderno, Compañero as initial steps to get them out of their rut. Only once pupils have gone through these three steps can they ask you a question. This works identically to the systems mentioned above but is a bit more language classroom friendly.